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I am a stay-at-home mother of two whose passion (besides my family) is books. I am an avid reader who enjoys all types of books, although I mainly read fiction. In addition to reading, I also love crocheting, knitting, cooking, running, and watching Penn State sports. Contact me: bookingmama@gmail.com
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Sunday, June 7, 2009

I am just so happy that Marisa de los Santos, author of BELONG TO ME, is stopping by today with a fantastic guest post. I absolutely loved her latest novel (my review), and I really thought it was interesting to learn how she developed the character of Lyssa. I hope you'll enjoy this post as much as I did!

While I’ve been a writer of some sort for years and years, I still feel like a relative newcomer to the novel writing gig, a little wide-eyed and wet behind the ears. I just haven’t been doing it for very long. Until early in 2004, when I wrote the first sentence of what would become my first novel Love Walked In, I hadn’t written a word of fiction, at least not in my adult life. A lot of poems, some book reviews, a couple of screenplays that will never see the light of day, a few personal essays, but no short stories and, certainly, no novels.

Naturally, the process has been, and continues to be, richly surprising, and one of the most startling surprises—and one I never quite get used to—is how little I get to be in charge. Of course, intellectually, I know that writing is a process of decision-making and that since I’m the only person in the room while the writing happens (well, occasionally, there are other people in the room, sometimes loud, jumpy people, but while they might be asking for snacks or telling me stories or showing me caterpillars or art projects, they’re not actually helping me write), I must be the one making the decisions. But, much of the time, that’s not how I experience it.

For instance, sometimes, characters just show up, out of nowhere and completely uninvited. In Belong to Me, there is a character named Lyssa Sorensen. She is sixteen-years old, blonde, and when we first meet her, she is sitting next to my character Dev in his Advanced Biology class. I knew from the beginning that Dev would have friends. I planned for him to have friends, but I planned for him to have just one friend who would be a full-fledged, fleshed-out character, and that friend, Aidan Weeks, a loquacious, biracial, high school soccer star and entrepreneur, was already in the book. I didn’t plan on two full-fledged character friends, and I certainly didn’t plan on Lyssa because, upon meeting her, what became immediately clear to me was that she has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

I know quite a bit about certain psychological disorders. Manic-depression, for example. Depression. Anorexia. Bulemia. Body dysmorphic disorder. ADD. ADHD. But while I had bits and pieces of information about OCD, I hadn’t read much about it and didn’t have a close friend or family member who had been diagnosed with it. Definitely, I didn’t know enough to write a character with OCD, and I was on a roll with the writing. I had no plans to stop and do research. So I looked at the character of Lyssa and said, “OK, you’re here. Fine. Stay. But no OCD.”

After all, the OCD was not all that defined Lyssa. She is bossy, judgmental, funny, sarcastic, lonely. I could see some reasons for her having a psychological disorder of some sort because so many such disorders involve secret keeping, and I understood that what would bind her to Dev was the fact that he would figure out her secret and would keep it to himself. But anorexia fit the bill. Bulimia, too. It didn’t have to be OCD.

Except that, somehow, it did. Nothing else seemed to work. Lyssa was who she was, insisted on being who she was, no matter how difficult on inconvenient, so I sighed and went with it. I did the research. I read through books; I went to online chat rooms to read what people with OCD or parents of children with OCD said about their lives. At the time, I could not have articulated why it needed to be that particular disorder, but I decided to listen to my character, to put aside my own plans and put my faith in the demands of my story.

It’s something I had done before, would do again, and expect to have to do as long as I’m writing novels, which I hope will be a very long time: to acknowledge that the novel writing process is organic, with its own inner, inscrutable logic; to go on instinct; to trust my book, and to hope that it will all make sense in the end.

In Lyssa’s case, it did. After I finished writing Belong to Me, I realized how Lyssa’s OCD fits in. Lyssa’s rituals are complicated, fueled by fear, and they interfere with her ability to live a healthy, happy life. But what I came to understand, as I looked back at my book as a whole, is that in her own extreme way, she is doing exactly the same thing that all of the characters are doing: trying to keep the universe in order, to keep bad things from happening, to keep chaos at bay, trying and, very often, failing. She fits. The book, the process knew this, even when I had no idea. Lyssa knew it.Thanks, Lyssa.

A big thanks to Marisa de los Santos for writing this guest post!

As you can see, Marisa de los Santos is a beautiful writer; and I think BELONG TO ME is just a great book. I just happen to have three copies courtesy of Harper Collins to giveaway.

This giveaway is open until June 21st at 11:59 p.m. EST, and I will notify the winners the following day. Only those of you with U.S. or Canada mailing addresses are eligible -- no p.o. boxes please. Good Luck!

I've eyed this one up for a long, long time every time I browse the bookstore. The cover very much appeals to me (and although we shouldn't, I often find myself attracted to books first of all based on their covers). The review also sounds great so I'd love to read it.

I am intrigued by how authors come up with their stories, so this one immediately caught my attention with the arrival of the unexpected character, Lyssa. I would love to read it to see how it all unfolds.

It is very interesting that the character just showed up. I have read other authors talking about the same thing. And I am an artist and have experience that happening in my art. I plan one thing,but elements, colors, just show up and the plan is out the window. I never know exactly where these things come from, but the more I trust that, the better the work. Anytime I try to fight it and stick with the plan, the art suffers. rebecca.cox@charter.net

I would love to read this one because the ONE time I saw it in my bookstore, I had to put it back dur to my already overindulgent pile. Since then, I've gone back to find it several times, and it's not there. Anything always unavailable has to be good right? It'll also teach me to try practicing moderation in bookstores again.

Definitely intriguing - I loved reading Marisa's guest post, too! Finding out how the character and story came about and all the work put into writing it really makes me want to read it. Thanks for the great giveaway!

Enter me into the giveaway. I read Marisa's first book and have become an instant fan so this new book is what's next for me. Thanks for allowing her to share some of her writing process with your blog.

I'd love to read this - several people in my husband's family have serious ocd, and I'm always interested in different takes on the illness + ways of coping. (We all know that fiction is much more reliable than statistics...)

I work with people who have mental illness, OCD being one of many types of diagnosis and the author is right; there is not alot really written about it for the mainstream to even get a grasp on the nature of this disease. Would love to read it.

I read Love Walked In and LOVED it. I love the way the author uses words. Sometimes sentences were so beautiful that I had to reread them just for the sounds. I'm sure Belong to Me will be just as wonderful. Thanks for the giveaway!

I would love to win a copy of this book! I took it out of the library, but only had a chance to get part-way through (I loved what I read so far!) before it was due back. And now I'm back on the waiting list to get it out again! If I had my own copy, it would be so much easier!

I know that this may seem like a silly reason to some people, but I am hispanic and it always excites me to see a hispanic woman author! It is the ice breaker sometimes to peaking my interest in a book. Is that dumb?Anyway, I'd love to win this!mariadelgado32302 at yahoo dot com